California’s first snow survey of the 2017-18 season turned up dismal results and stoked fears that one year after a drought-busting winter, the Golden State could be headed right back toward widespread water scarcity.

Fears over how climate change will manifest itself in the United States typically center on coastal areas, where predictions of a rising sea prompt predictions about disappearing beaches from Los Angeles to Miami to the Jersey Shore. But two recent studies make the case that the American West and its precarious water supply represents the true canary in the coal mine when it comes to the disaster of climate change.

As a spring shower padded already impressive snowfall totals, California water regulators on Thursday trudged through growing snowdrifts and measured a portion of the Sierra Nevada snowpack at 183 percent of average.